


A Slice of Normal

by sarahxxxlovey



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alice Cooper is mean, Dark Betty Cooper, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Jughead Jones is Not Asexual, Or mentioned dark betty is probably more correct, Southside Serpent Jughead Jones, Well slightly Dark Betty I guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-25
Updated: 2017-11-25
Packaged: 2019-02-06 15:21:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12820386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarahxxxlovey/pseuds/sarahxxxlovey
Summary: "She appreciates that he doesn’t call her perfect, that her flaws are part of his reality. He sees her dark side, the way that the shadows consume her sometimes and he makes no efforts to convince her that these faults are part of her perfection." A drabble on how Jughead comforts Betty after a tough day.





	A Slice of Normal

She appreciates that he doesn’t call her perfect, that her flaws are part of his reality. He sees her dark side, the way that the shadows consume her sometimes and he makes no efforts to convince her that these faults are part of her perfection. He doesn’t tell her that the way that she hurts herself is part of what make her perfect or even that she’s perfect despite the fact that she hurts herself.

The words he uses on a normal basis include gorgeous and amazing and on occasion, a sight for sore eyes, but sometimes, when he takes her bra off and sees her topless and his eyes go big, she loves that the first words that come out of his mouth are _God, Betts, you’re perfect._

It makes her dizzy, the way he loves her. The way that he looks up at her when she climbs into his lap in the back seat of her parent’s car after they eat at Pop’s. The way he finds ways to touch her, a hand at the back and side of her neck as he kisses her, a gentle rub on her shoulder when she’s been hunched over at her laptop for too long, how he kisses her scarred palms.

Sometimes it was more concrete, the way that she loved him. She brings him Tupperware filled with her mom’s leftovers for him to eat for dinner and ingredients to make sandwiches for lunch. She cares for his wounds after a fight, wiping away the blood from his face and icing his knuckles. She slams anyone who says that the Serpents deal drugs.

But the way he loves her, it’s soft and ever-present, it’s barely-there touches and unspoken words. It’s in the routines of how he loves her through the hard days.

When she forced a smile and dug her nails in the palms of her hands, he is there, a hand on the sensitive skin of her neck, pressing feather light kisses to her temple. The angry tears sting at her eyes and the lump in her throat grows and she wants to _scream_ at how stupid it all seems when his arms wrap around her waist and she’s against his chest, breathing the smell of his shirt, the slight smell of cigarettes left from his leather jacket and the dyer sheets she’d sneakily placed in his laundry basket.

When days like this happen, he’s the first to notice. It hurts her heart that he notices things about her before she realizes herself and much before she notices things about him either.  

She can hear her mother’s voice, teaching Polly the correct way to clean a wound. The memories of Alice move in slow-motion, her voice guiding and tender, telling Betty that this will sting but that it’ll be okay and that it’ll be over soon. Betty wonders to herself how much of that she internalized, how much she has endured just because she thought that it was good for her and would be over soon.

When the crescents appear in her hands where her nails were, he holds her fingers in his own and kisses her forehead or her cheek or her nose before he leads her to the bathroom. He stands behind her as he runs her hands under the cold water, kissing her neck and holding his hands under hers, whispering soothing words against her skin. He gets down on her level and asks her questions about their surroundings to distract her from her own thoughts while he sits her down on the side of the tub.

He takes a cloth and soaks it in saline solution, telling her to breath out when he dabs the crescent cuts on her palms. He dries her hands with a clean towel and kisses away her tears, whispering how much he loves her and how this isn’t going to last forever.

Sometimes she’s already calmed down by this point, sometimes her sobs come out raggedly and he spends a half hour sitting next to her on the tub and rubbing her back, kissing her shoulder.

Sometimes her need for him turns desperate and the wires in her brain that dictate intensity cross until she’s urgent for his skin on hers. In those moments, he kisses down her arms, placing soft touches on her fingers, leaving wet marks down her stomach and dipping lower. One time she was so worked up at the way he placed open mouth kisses on her hipbone that she wrung her hands in the sheets and kept opening the wounds in her hands and he tells her that to get what she wants she either needs to control herself or he’ll have to control her himself. It sends a dark shiver down her spine, satiating the need to trust, to lose control and actually be taken care of.

Those times are rare though, and in most moments she turns from tight pony-tailed Betty Cooper into a little girl sobbing on the couch, buried in his arms.

He runs his fingers through her loose curls, easing the physical and emotional soreness she feels from a day of faking a perfect ponytail and the matching smile. She cries into the material of his jeans, her head in his lap as he listens to her vent about her day, her overbearing mother, the pressure she feels to save Riverdale.

She turns from facing away from him to facing the ceiling, eventually turning her eyes up towards his face.

“Is it always going to be like this?” Betty asks. “Is it always going to feel like everything is against us?”

“No,” he whispers, “No, baby, it’s not.”

She breaks down into sobs again and he lifts her up to lean against his chest, curling up into him.

“I don’t understand why she’s like this,” she sobs. “What did I do that was so bad? Why is she so disappointed in me?”

He shushes her softly, rubbing his hand along her back.

“Betty, look at me,” he says to her sternly. “This isn’t about you. Your mom wants to control you because she can’t deal with her own mistakes and stress. You are amazing and hardworking and you have a heart of gold.”

“Why does she hate me?” she cries softly. He places kisses along her palms.

“Baby, she doesn’t hate you,” Jughead comforts quickly, “Parents are people and people mess up. She’s not perfect but she loves you, Betty.”

“You shouldn’t do this to people you love,” she says, wiping tears off her face angrily, “You shouldn’t treat people you love like she treats me.”

“She shouldn’t,” he agrees, wiping her face and pressing a kiss to her lips. “You’re better, Betty Cooper. Better than a lot of people and I’m sorry the world is going to keep hurting you to remind you of that fact.”

She has calmed down now, reaching the point where she was just angry. Angry at herself for letting her mother occupy so much time in her head. Angry at her parents for being such shitty examples of how adult relationships were supposed to function. Angry at Riverdale for being so suffocating and small.

“Perfect is a stupid fucking thing to aim for, you know?” she laughs darkly.

“I know,” he replies, his brows furrowed.

“What if I turn into her?” she asks. Her voice broke and a fresh wave of tears sprung to her eyes.

“You know something?” Jughead starts, pulling her against his chest again. “I think we’re destined to turn into our parents… if we don’t fight it. And you’re a fighter, Betts. You can be and develop into whoever you want.”

She loves him more in that moment than she ever had before. She loves the way he holds her and somehow says something that will calm the storm even when she feels like she’s already been taken by it.

“You think I’m a fighter?” she asks.

“The best I know. Ali trembles at the thought of you,” he teases. She gives him a watery smile.  

“I’m sorry, Juggy,” she whimpers into his neck.

“Why are you sorry, Betts?” he whispers in her ear, pulling her closer against his soft cotton shirt.

“You having to deal with me,” she manages to get out before biting back a sob, “Your stupid girlfriend who can’t handle some family stress without tearing herself apart and forcing you to deal with me and–“

“Betty, I love you, but shut the hell up,” he replies shortly. He squeezes her more tightly against him on the couch, pulling her into his lap and placing a hundred soft kisses in her golden hair. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to be.”

“You deserve someone normal,” she says like she’s admitting a dark secret, her big green doe eyes filled with tears and looking up at him, melting his heart.

“I don’t deserve you, Betty Cooper,” he says softly, kissing her quickly. “You bring as much normal to this hellhole as I want.”

She lets out a short laugh and feels her heart lighten slightly.

“You’re so good to me, Juggy,” she says as he runs the backs of his fingers along her jawline. She continues talking, her voice smaller this time. “The darkness feels overwhelming sometimes.”

“I’m here, baby,” he whispers into the top of her head.

She relaxes against him and they sat there for a while, in the front room of his dad’s trailer in the South Side of Riverdale, their slice of normal complete with contained demons and darkness, the healing cuts on her hands and his Serpents jacket hung on the chair.

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this saved on my computer for a long time to post when I got an AO3 invitation! Thanks for reading my first story, and I'd love if you left a review :)


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